My first trip to the United States from Russia with J1 exchange student program Work&Travel 2017.

Hello everyone, my name is Umid and I am student from the biggest country in the world Russia🇷🇺. I am freshman in the Kazan Federal University and I am studying international relations🎓. So, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I can spend my summertime. Actually I heard about Work and Travel J1 program later and I have been dreaming to visit U.S. for a long time but it sounded frightening due to the fact that United States is a completely different country and there are a lot of differences between these two countries. In this post I want to share with you all my first feelings, difficulties and impressions about visiting America ✈️🇺🇸

Over land of the Free and the home of the Brave.

My flight lasted a fairly long period of time. The plane flew from Kazan to Moscow and the duration of the flight was approx. 1.5 hours. First stop was Moscow international airport and a long wait for the next flight to New York, United States. After 4 hours I was on my way to New York. We crossed Northern Europe, Canada and the North Atlantic for 9 hours. Finally the aircraft  landed at the John F. Kennedy international airport. I was convinced that I would see Manhattan through the window of my plane but on that day the weather was cloudy and misty🌇🗽.

 Well, at the airport there was a very long queue for passport control. A lot of people from different countries around the globe. My next flight was after 5 hours after my arriving in New York. I stood in line for 4 hours. Honestly it was extremely nervous because I thought that I would be late for the next flight to Boston. After passing the passport control, I quickly took my suitcase and ran to look for AirTrain because my plane to Boston was in another terminal. One of the most nervous period in my entire life....😁😁😁 

Unfortunately, my efforts went in vain because the flight to Boston was delayed for 2 hours and so I had enormous time to explore the terminal of domestic departures. I heard many times the words "Excuse me, sorry", "Thank you!", "Have a nice day". I knew that americans are a very polite nation. No doubt that my english is not very good and despite of my accent the airport staff always politely answered all my questions and pointed me the right way.

 Actually in Russia and I think in many other countries there are a lot of stereotypes about americans and at the airport I was with all these stereotypes in my mind. I want to highlight some of them.

1. All Americans like fast food and most of them are fat.
2. Americans are stupid.
3. Americans have fake smiles.
4. Americans bad and tasteless dress up and etc.

At first impression neither stereotype nor prejudice was true. Let's leave this issue open until the moment when some time passes and I can make a full conclusion about it.

Now I want to return to my adventure at the airport. Flight to the birthplace of American history and revolution city of Boston was with JetBlue Airlines🎆🇺🇸. In the aircraft I was a little bit surprised that apparently this airlines in particular don't have any standards (height, weight, outfit) for aircraft personnel. It struck me in the eye because the staff of  Russian Airlines Aeroflot has these standards. It was a bit strange after the slender and tall flight attendants of Aeroflot to observe the very opposite. During the whole flight the crew entertained us, and upon arrival in Boston the captain declared that our beloved baggage was kindly and neatly put up for sale on eBay.☺️😆

Conclusion.

So overall my first impressions are pretty good (feel like I'm in hollywood movie) and I am happy to being here and it is definitely will be my best summer (I think so😉).

For the first time that's all I wanted to say. I hope that in the future there will be more events, photos, impressions and places visited and I have a plan to write more about my adventure in the citadel of democracy.

Thank you very much for your time..... Have a good day!😜